According to a report of German Der Spiegel (German only), a Vietnam Airlines B777 was almost shot down over Czech Republic in April.

The plane was enroute from Hanoi to FRA, but did not communicate with ATC for 65 minutes. When they entered Czech airspace, they were not in their scheduled corridor. Czech airforce thus ordered 2 jets to chase the unidentified object. The jets were allowed to shoot the plane down, should it have turned out to be a threat.

However, when the jets reached the plane, they saw both pilots sleeping in the cockpit.

Vietnam Airlines said they could rule out that the pilots took a nap, as a VN policy says that an f/a should see after the pilots every 15 minutes. Still, the crew was suspended from duty.

The Spiegel report also tells about other scandals connected to VN. Maybe the article will become available in English soon.

The FMC monitors button presses on the EFIS control panel, the CDUs, the PTT switches and the MCP. If a certain time elapses without a switch being pressed, an EICAS advistory message is displayed. If there's still no response, there would be an EICAS caution message. If there's no response after that, there would be an EICAS warning message.

So if the pilots were asleep for 65 minutes, they'd be sleeping through some pretty loud alarms.

Czech fighter planes already were in air. Their order: the firing of an airplane, which did not keep a funkkontakt. But the pilots of the Viet Nam airline machine, which was on the way to Frankfurt, are to have held a Nickerchen.

As admits only now became, in April over 200 aircraft passengers of the vietnamesischen airline Viet Nam airlines on the flight from Hanoi came to Frankfurt/Main only scarcely with the life of it. After a report of the vietnamesischen on-line magazine "Viet Nam Net" a Boing 777 had had no funkkontakt at the night from 17. to 18 April over the air spaces of the Ukraine, Poland and Tschechiens 65 minutes long to the soil. Because the machine deviated from the air corridor, it should be shot, stated "Viet Nam Net".

DPAAirplane Viet Nam airlines: Sleeping pilots, smuggling copilot?
January Pejsek of the Prager Ministry of Defense essentially confirms the incident opposite MIRROR ON-LINE ONE. At 5.45 o'clock 18 of April would have sighted the Czech Air Force an unknown flying object, which had not communicated with the flugkontrollzentrum in Prague. Two fighter planes would have taken up pursuit immediately, since one had proceeded from a military threat. But the object had proven as civilian vietnamesisches airliner. Again flight contact existed, explains few minutes after beginning of the escort January Pejsek.

According to vietnamesischen medium reports the surprised Czech fighter plane pilots saw that the two pilots of the passenger plane a Nickerchen held. "you had slept and let one hour and five minutes long the airplane by the autopilot steer", write "Viet Nam Net". That is confirmed nor disclaimed by the Czech Ministry of Defense neither.

Scandal-vibrated state airline

The national airline Viet Nam airlines confirmed opposite MIRROR ON-LINE ONE the loss of the funkkontaktes, disclaims however that the pilots would have slept. Speaker Arnaud Pohier: "that is impossible. We have to supply a regulation, after which the hostesses visit every 15 minutes the pilot cab, around the flight captains." This argumentation represents also the Hanoier flight safety authority opposite Tschechien. The entire crew was suspended nevertheless by the service. The flight captains and hostesses concerned can however the flight license get back, if they can successfully be after-trained.

According to vietnamesischen flight safety this is the first case of this kind with Viet Nam airline. Klaus shrubs, speaker of the airport in Frankfurt, confirms the intact landing of the machine on 18 April at 7.30 o'clock with one hour of delay.

The incident became admits, after the national airline is afflicted since monthly beginning in Viet Nam von Skandalen. Media had uncovered that the enterprise children of high-ranking coworkers, of party officials and Ministry coworkers had gesponsert illegally a school stay abroad. This fact granted the airline in the meantime.

Such kind of self-service by functionaries is far common in Viet Nam. Only in April a corruption scandal in the traffic Ministry flew up in million height. The deputy transport minister sits since then in detention. The functionaries, who had sent to their children on public expenses to the school abroad, are to pay the money back, were called it in Hanoi. The parliament examines whether the school stays were connected with corruption.

The state State of Viet Nam airlines put end down of the nineties successfully the Aschenputtel image and ascended by modern flight technology as well as the mechanism of numerous new airlines to an internationally recognized enterprise. Flight safety, reliability, above all however the operation on board through Viet Nam inside in the traditional garbs and the eastern kitchen receive good notes by international goods testers.

Foreign exchange smuggling from Australia

But in this month the enterprise does not come from the headlines: In Italy it lost straight in civil proceedings against an Italian lawyer more than five million euro. The lawyer had a contract with a subsidiary of Viet Nam airlines, which went in the meantime to bankruptcy, and deplored now the nut/mother company on payment of damages. The aviation enterprise had taken the complaint and had not even appeared not serious to the process. Now it wants to insert appointment.

And since 3 June the vietnamesische copilot Tran Van sits hired in a remand centre in the Australian Sydney. It had tried to implement with the return flight from Sydney after Hanoi one half million US dollar in bar duty-free. Particularly embarrassingly: The Australian law refused a detention attendance to the official representatives of the airline particularly entered from Viet Nam with its coworker. "Viet Nam Net" wants to have experienced from Australian Ermittlern that "several pilots and hostesses help more frequently to bring cash in the country or abroad. The Ermittler has difficulties to clear such cases up."

In Australia one of the largest vietnamesischen foreign municipalities lives with more than 150,000 Migranten. The Auslandsvietnamesen supports its relatives in Viet Nam financially. Bank credit transfers are however connected with high fees, and in Viet Nam only few have a bank account, so that one must find other ways, to transfer the money.

"the scandals harm our image so far not", say Arnaud Pohier, speaker of Viet Nam airlines for Germany. "we have a good product and to register rising conversions."

short summary of every jewish holiday: they tried to kill us ,we won , lets eat !

VN is rife with corruption; (mirroring whats going on in the govt recently) to even get a job there (including ground staff to pilots) bribes are required. apparently VN suspended service via DXB because of rampant crew smuggling of goods back to SGN and HAN.

the airline used to operate as a separate entity, the golden goose in VN's state run industries. in 2003, the airline was pulled under the Ministry of Transportation in Vietnam, and that was bad news. not only does it give officials at the MOT the ability to skim money off the carriers profits, safety, inflight service and virtually every aspect of the carrier have gone down hill since then. a contact who was arranging training programs at VN lost all his business when this move took place......

its not the first time pilots have fallen asleep: a good friend of mine is a pilot for VN, and on a return leg from ICN to SGN, he looked over at his co-pilot who was sound asleep.....had to shake him awake.

Quoting Neptunescar (Reply 12):VN is rife with corruption; (mirroring whats going on in the govt recently) to even get a job there (including ground staff to pilots) bribes are required. apparently VN suspended service via DXB because of rampant crew smuggling of goods back to SGN and HAN.

After what happened in 1983 with KAL 007, no Air Force in a democratic country will shoot down an aircraft confirmed to be civilian. Unless it is doing other stuff than cruising along happily. Besides the casualties on the ground, imagine the outrage over Czechia for shooting down a Boeing with 200 passengers. They would probably escort it out from their airspace until it reaches another country, where a new escort will be waiting. They'll follow along and do the same until it either starts with funky business or whatever is going on sorts itself out.

The Helios plane was never shot down, although it came from a conflictive area directly towards Athens.

That's the kind of fighter pilots and ground command you want, not a Tom Cruise style Top Gun.

Quoting FlyDreamliner (Reply 15):After what happened in 2001 with the world trade center, oh yes they will.

Quoting FlyDreamliner (Reply 15):Doesn't it occur to you that seeing pilots sleeping in the flight deck would look like they have been killed and left there or died from lack of oxygen, it would look obivious.

Ok, so, then, why wasn't it shot down?

Keep watching movies.

9/11 was a totally different scenario. Why was then the Helios plane not shot down?

Besides, with a plane flying in cruise level, with no excess speed or agressive maneuvers, it is not going to be shot down. Not at that stage. Besides, what's the point? you shoot down a B-777 and what do you do with the fall out? And I mean the fiery pieces, not the public relations fall out.

Quoting N754PR (Reply 17):Question is how many times does this happen every week, but they wake up in a matter of mins?

I've heard stories where both pilots being asleep. It does happen although nobody admits it unless they are telling the story to close friends. They don't actually fall into sleep they just get a shut eye for 10-30 minutes, helps a lot and makes a big difference in keeping the fatigue down. As far as the story goes, I wouldn't believe the airline, especially one from a 3rd world country who would rather cover it up rather than admit they have pilots who don't know how to operate the airplane and communicate. Frankly I don't know how pilots could make a mistake with the 777, it's so automated all you need to do is push a button and the plane does everything! Good thing they didn't fly over Russia or something.

I believe that they could have fallen asleep...but how didn't they wake up? It's shamefull for VN....and harmful too, I for one am not planing on flying Vietnam Airlines any time soon, that's for sure!

The FMC monitors button presses on the EFIS control panel, the CDUs, the PTT switches and the MCP. If a certain time elapses without a switch being pressed, an EICAS advistory message is displayed. If there's still no response, there would be an EICAS caution message. If there's no response after that, there would be an EICAS warning message.

So if the pilots were asleep for 65 minutes, they'd be sleeping through some pretty loud alarms.

You seem quite familiar with the 777 systems (pilot, engineer ?). Your explanation is very interesting.
I'm not sure we'll get an acurate report of VN anytime soon...

Whatever really happened, I'm glad that it's forbidden to shoot down aircraft in a situation like that in Germany. It shows that such actions would only lead to shooting down non-hijacked aircraft. Real terrorists would not fly around for an hour without talking. They would pretend that nothing had happened and then strike their target before anybody actually noticed the airplane was off track.

I checked both threads, here and in the German a.de and may have over read it, but no one sweems to have questioned the fact that only 2 pilots were on that flight. HAN-FRA is a twice weekly non stop flight, the distance and total flight time should require 3 pilots.

Could it be that VN is a golden goose for the Vietnamese communist party officals because they are cutting some corners?

Quoting AirWillie6475 (Reply 19):I've heard stories where both pilots being asleep. It does happen although nobody admits it unless they are telling the story to close friends. They don't actually fall into sleep they just get a shut eye for 10-30 minutes, helps a lot and makes a big difference in keeping the fatigue down

Perfecrly true. Imagine yourself on a 12/13 hours non-stop flight, what would you do? We are not talkin' about heavy sleep, a sort of little nap which came naturally, luckily pilots are men, not machines.

Quoting AR385 (Reply 18):Besides, with a plane flying in cruise level, with no excess speed or agressive maneuvers, it is not going to be shot down. Not at that stage. Besides, what's the point? you shoot down a B-777 and what do you do with the fall out? And I mean the fiery pieces, not the public relations fall out.

I agree 100%

Quoting Thorben (Reply 24):Whatever really happened, I'm glad that it's forbidden to shoot down aircraft in a situation like that in Germany. It shows that such actions would only lead to shooting down non-hijacked aircraft.

Since last radio contact with the aircraft was over Ukraine and it flew over Slovakia uncontrolled, the fighters were scrambled only to make the crew communicate with ATC, not to shoot them down!!! I would not be so rash with saying that...

I would like to think, all melodramatic news reporting aside, that the Czech airtraffic controllers and Air Force did a great job : threatening anomoly solved, aircraft landed safely, and no one was hurt nor was there any property dammage.

Lets put the superlatives away and say it how it was, the Czechs proved they are an organized and effective member of the EU, international ATC system, NATO and aviation community as a whole.

Quoting AR385 (Reply 18):Quoting FlyDreamliner (Reply 15):
After what happened in 2001 with the world trade center, oh yes they will.

Quoting FlyDreamliner (Reply 15):
Doesn't it occur to you that seeing pilots sleeping in the flight deck would look like they have been killed and left there or died from lack of oxygen, it would look obivious.

Ok, so, then, why wasn't it shot down?

Keep watching movies.

9/11 was a totally different scenario. Why was then the Helios plane not shot down?

My point (which you missed) was this: Prior to 9/11, unless the aircraft flew over a military installation, they wouldn't have drempt of firing on a commerical airliner. Post 9/11, if an aircraft loses contact, leaves its flight path, and begins to approach an urban center, shooting it down becomes a very real possibility, and if there if there are any other factors to arouse suspicion, it only makes it worse. We live in a dangerous world, and terrorism is real, and has to be guarded against. I'm not saying they'll shoot everything down that leaves it's flight path, I'm saying if it does so suspiciously, doing so becomes a very real option. I commend the Czechs for having fighter jets on it so quickly.

Quoting TheSorcerer (Reply 36):If so, the fighter pilots could have taken pictures and remove all doubt.

You would think so - that was the conclusive evidence in the crash of American golfer Payne Stewart's Learjet crash - the handhelp camera shots from fighter jets showed the pilots heads slumped forward and frost on the insides of the windows. Pictures could conclusively settle this too.

Quoting MCIGuy (Reply 37):Man, I would NOT want to be behind the stick of one of thos MiGs. I'd have visions of KAL 007 racing through my mind. Would those jokers be prosecuted in the US?

It would be severely out of line in terms of international legal precedent for the US to try the individual pilots of the Sukhoi fighter jets that shot down KAL 007.

Quoting FlyDreamliner (Reply 38):My point (which you missed) was this: Prior to 9/11, unless the aircraft flew over a military installation, they wouldn't have drempt of firing on a commerical airliner. Post 9/11, if an aircraft loses contact, leaves its flight path, and begins to approach an urban center, shooting it down becomes a very real possibility, and if there if there are any other factors to arouse suspicion, it only makes it worse. We live in a dangerous world, and terrorism is real, and has to be guarded against. I'm not saying they'll shoot everything down that leaves it's flight path, I'm saying if it does so suspiciously, doing so becomes a very real option. I commend the Czechs for having fighter jets on it so quickly.

Ok, the above, IS your point. Which I still disagre with, but it is a valid point. I would not have questioned that.

Quoting FlyDreamliner (Reply 15):After what happened in 2001 with the world trade center, oh yes they will.

The above, is what I replied to initially which, if you read it again, is not a POINT, but a statement. If you would have inverted the chronological order of the posts, then it would have been another story.

I am just wondering, should I find it more frightening that people fall asleep or that two pilots, highly qualified hopefully, are unable to operate the radio? What else might they be unable to operate then?